Rosen: Cases and Materials on The Outfit David Rosen Don Corleone to Sonny, in The Godfather The Don sighed. "Well, then I can't talk to you about how you should behave. Don't you want to finish school, don't you want to be a lawyer? Lawyers can steal more money with a briefcase than a thousand men with guns and masks. " Robert Warshow, in "The Gangster as Tragic Hero" Thus, the importance of the gangster film, and the nature and intensity of its emotional and esthetic impact, cannot be measured in terms of the place of the gangster himself or the importance of the problem of crime in American life. Those European movie-goers who think there is a gangster on every comer in New York are certainly deceived, but defenders of the "positive" side of American culture are equally deceived if they think it relevant to point out that most Cases and Materials Americans have never seen a gangster. What matters is that the experience of the gangster as an experience of on art is universal to Americans. There is almost nothing we understand better or react to more readily or with The Outfit quicker intelligence. This night, though, Pam had a different tale to tell. She announced that she and her friend Annie, the daughter of a prize-winning biologist, had gone to see "The Godfather," that they had been so deeply moved that, instead of going home, she'd gone tripping around town in search of the Mafia. I remember one night Pam showed up at the House at "The Mafia!" three in the morning. Not that there was anything unusual in somebody showing up that late; the TV was Twisto Levine, Doctor of Crime, connoisseur of petty always on with competition from at least one stereo, theft, bars and New Haven lowlife, a man who savored there were shoulders to cry on, ears anxious for the his brief but illuminating contact with the Invisible 87 latest gossip, and always somebody was there who was Forces, laughed out loud. ready to share good dope with all comers. Pam turned: a serious look on her face reproved Twisto. Pam used to show up often at the House. She came mainly to relate her long tales of woe and amorous "Yes, the Mafia," she said, explaining that after seeing disappointment, though it was almost always the same "The Godfather" she realized that she could find, in the disappointment: daughter of a prominent English Mafia, that human closeness that had been lacking in her professor, a perennial student, she was bright enough, life ever since she'd been a child. but she seemed to specialize in getting into ruts that repeated themselves month after month and year after "But Pam," said Twisto, "where'd you go to find year. them?" Well, it turned out that Pam hadn't quite located David Rosen is a third year student at Yale Law School. Published by Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository, 1973 1 Yale Review of Law and Social Action, Vol. 3 [1973], Iss. 1, Art. 7 the Mafia yet. And that it was only this failure that Answer: Joe Colombo, Sr.--No. tainted her otherwise successful evening. Not that she hadn't tried hard. To begin with, she and Annie had Answer: Joe Colombo, Jr.--No. gone to the Billy Budd room of the Holiday Inn where they spent the last of their money on Scotch. From Question: If there is a Mafra, is it growing? declining? there, they'd moved on to another hotel. The action there had begun on a promising note: a small group of Answer: Life magazine series, September, 1967: meaty, middle-aged men, Italian-looking and drunk, ... Each year it handles $20 billion in illegal bets, of which it crowded around the two girls. Pam found them plenty keeps $7 billion profit. ... On every bet made, be it $1 or vulgar enough to qualify as Mafiosi. It was just that as $10,000, the Mob collects a cut of the action, called vigorish --­ soon as she and Annie began to get somewhere, they usually 10%. were suddenly booted out of the hotel (by a couple of ... no one can say for sure just what its legitimate investments bouncer-pimps, who were apparently concerned with amount to .... The best hint came from gangland's own the effect that an invasion by the competition would financial wizard - Mayer Lansky himself - who made a modest have on their business). appraisal of the Mob's private holding. "We're bigger than U.S. Steel," said Lansky. From there (later we discovered that they'd crashed a convention of cash-register salesmen) Pam and Annie hit Even though U.S. Steel's assets are $5,642,379,942 and its the bar at the Midtown Motor Inn, ordered drinks, and 1966 profits came to $249,238,569, Lansky's boast strikes federal investigative agencies as conservative. The gangsters are began their Mafia watch in the semi-darkness. 'Tm sure in almost everything .... they were on their way," said Pam, "I'm sure. Otherwise why would the bartender have hustled us out? Got us The Mob's power over the nation's biggest port and its rackets - out so quick he never even asked us to pay for our shakedowns, shylocking and thievery -- stems from its grip on drinks." ILA locals. The Gambino gang today dominates the unions on the Brooklyn piers. On the docks of Manhattan and in New Jersey ports, the Vito Genovese gang is rigidly in "Going back there tomorrow night?" I asked, with a control. straight face. Answer: Nicholas Gage, in New York magazine, July 24, A blissful expression settled over Pam's face. She 1972: nodded, faintly, peacefully. The DeCalvacante tapes reveal, for the first time, the kind of seediness that makes up Mafia life. They show DeCalvacante, Twisto broke the long moment of silence that followed. whom the F .BJ. had labelled as the boss of New Jersey, running all over the state trying to find a $150 a-week job for "Where the fuck's the coke," he said. "I said where the a Gambino relative. They tell of Mafia underbosses giving their hell is the goddamn coke." He fumbled under the chair, wives $50 a week household money and paying $125 a month and found nothing. "You bring any coke Pam? You cop rent. Contrary to what most journalists write about the mob any coke from the Mafia?" and most police claim, the DeCalvacante papers proved the majority of the Mafia's membership are not millionaires, but are low-level, ulcer-ridden, working-class worriers - in She ignored him, and turned back to me, her eyes half construction gangs or scrounging for jobs in factories or along open, as if in a trance. the Jersey piers - who carry messages, administer occasional beatings or watch over failing businesses on which they are "What kind of opera records you keep around here?" continuously trying to borrow money. One has a hard time she asked. reconciling the Mafia life-style according to DeCalvacante with the declaration of Carl M. Loeb, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, who would have us believe Question: Is organized crime Italian? that "in ten or fifteen years organized crime will have amassed at least one half trillion dollars and will then own the entire Answer: Mario Puzo, in The Godfather Papers: United States." ... do Italians and American-Italians control organized crime in America? The answer must be a reluctant but firm Question: Where is the Mafia? 88 Yes .... Most of the operators in organized crime in this country will bleed Italian blood. That fact must be accepted. Answer: Yale men, 1970: The Copper Kitchen (Chapel Street, between College and High). Answer: Nicholas Gage, The Mafia in Not an Equal Opportunity Employer: Answer: Yale men, 1966: in Olivia's (Chapel Street, Clearly, the underworld in the United States is as much a between College and High). melting pot as any other aspect of our culture, and the opportunities for vice have attracted just as many ethnic groups as the opportunities for legitimate achievement .... if Answer: Magazine freaks, 1972: Consult New York every member of the Mafia disappeared tomorrow, organized magazine, issue of July 24, which features: "Mafia Maps: crime would still be an immense, if largely invisible, parasite Where to find Your Local Button Man": six pages in the· sucking the lifeblood of American society. center of the magazine which cover Manhattan, Question: Is there a Mafia? https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yrlsa/vol3/iss1/7Answer: J. Edgar Hoover, 1961--No. 2 Rosen: Cases and Materials on The Outfit Brooklyn and the Bronx, and which tell you where to "You see down there," Twisto whispered as the waiter find the Mafia's favorite social clubs and restaurants, left us. He pointed to the other end of the restaurant, dumping grounds, florists, mortuaries and historical where a side door led out to Mulberry Street. "That sites. door is where the guy that took Joey came in. Joey and three others were setting at these two tables there." He Answer: Pam:???? pointed out two of the small, shellacked butcher-block style tables near the door. "5:30 A.M., April 7, Joey's 43rd birthday. Man comes in, 5'8", black hair, wearing a light tweed car coat. Suddenly he's blazing away with his Question: Where is the Mafia? .38, and that's the end of Joey." It is a new place, clean and well-lighted, on the comer of I looked down the two neat rows of tables that ran Mulberry and Hester.